North Head tunnels?

[SixPackBack]

Conspiracy theory or otherwise?...The Devonport North Head tunnels have been the subject of conjecture and discussion for many years, many of the older generation [many now deceased] have talked openly about huge caverns containing aircraft and an armoury.
Have any of the older boys/girls on KB seen these tunnels?

[Sam I Am]

i heard the first or Boeing ( 001 ) is in there somewere ? God alone knows how i think the US was hiding it from the japs... but I think they lost it in there ?

[Maha]

Didnt the first Concorde to come here land in those tunnels?
Ironically, the Pilot of the first Concorde to come here was named... Captain James Cook....absolutley true.

[SixPackBack]

The whisper was that after the second world war so many armaments remained that removing them become a logistical nightmare

[R6_kid:Me]

I have heard this too... though nothing overly amazing would be in there, as in i doubt anything hugely top secret, though if my memory serves me correct they go back to WW1 when it was the Russians they were worried about - and there was at one stage a VERY large contingency of American Navy stuff hanging around in Auckland.

Any aircraft stored in there would more than likely be wood/fabric/wire construction and very hard to restore assuming that its been damp and muggy down there for the last 60+ years... as such the ammunition was probably well past usable too.

[JimO]

. as such the ammunition was probably well past usable too.

it would be nice and unstable by now

[firefighter]

yeah have you guys been in north head tunnels......yes most are now sealed but aircraft? the mountain isn't that big...........and what really would be the point in putting an aircraft in it would be in pieces so would need to be put together once pulled out, iv'e heard the rumours before but personally I only really think there's old armaments....

[Ixion]

Conspiracy theory or otherwise?...The Devonport North Head tunnels have been the subject of conjecture and discussion for many years, many of the older generation [many now deceased] have talked openly about huge caverns containing aircraft and an armoury.
Have any of the older boys/girls on KB seen these tunnels?

I have been in there many many years ago. Even then the 'front' entrance was sealed up, but if you scrambled along the cliff there was another entrance. All overgrown then, doubtless long since fallen in.

They were BIG. And went a LONG way into the mountain. Further in than small boys could dare each other to go. There were steel doors ,most open or part open, but some closed. We couldn't open the closed ones.

There was 'stuff' in them, but all we saw was rubbish. But there appeared to be cases further in (it was very dark! )

The accepted wisdom was that ammo was dumped at sea after the war, but weapons stores (and maybe vehicles!) were abandoned in there.

I doubt anything of any value was there , but to a departing army 'value' would be a variable thing.

[Laava]

I have been in there and the things I've seen, alien aircraft and NZ's top secret Trekka project, Muldoons bunker.....oh it's scary I tell ya!

[Hitcher]

That could be where my virginity is.

[Mom]

Have never been too far into the North Head tunnels, they are all sealed up now anyway, but have delved deep into the tunnels at Stoney Bater on Waiheke Island. Scarey things tunnels, they soak up all light.

Rumours have been around for many years about what is hidden in them. What ever secrets they hide are well sealed up behind concrete barriers. I doubt anything of any worth is still there though, think about it for a minute. We were a very poor country back in the day, do you really think the government of the day would have allowed anything of anyworth to be buried?

I dont think so, sold or scrapped is my bet. Urban legends are so cool!

[Motu]

North Head is open to the public now,and you can explore all the tunnels,a great day out with the kids.....I'm going to take my granddaughter on saturday if it's fine.

But they weren't always open.In the '70's I worked with a woman whose brother worked in the Lighthouse Keeper Department,what ever that was call at the time.In later years he got all the good posts...and one was at North Head.It was back in the PEP Scheme days,and he had the boys clean out the tunnels.So during breaks we would hear of the things that got hauled out of the tunnels - like complete Jeeps! Because I was into bikes,she used to tell me about the bikes that he ended up with,most were runners.There were Velocete's and others - they were not Army bikes,but bikes requisitioned from private citizens for military use....they were never given back after the war.They may have been paid a token,or nothing at all - my grandfather lost his fleet of trucks this way.When WWII started he had a trucking company,when it ended he had nothing....he was an Irishman,so you can imagine the chip on his shoulder.

Anyway - yes,the tunnels were full of amaizing stuff,and it disapeared.I don't know if this person kept them,or if the Army disposed of them,but they were there.

Same as Silvia Park camp - that was my home ground,and the family of my foreman as an apprentice owned the farm it was built on.The sheds were full of stuff...and motorcycles and cars for sure.One was full of 1940 Chevs,and there were no 1940 Chevs sold in NZ.They had been for US Army use.I knew they were there,and I remember when they were auctioned off.

[Ixion]

Vast amounts of stores were dumped or sold off cheap after the war. The big storage sheds at Camp Bunn and Sylvia Park were chock full of stuff. It was pretty much useless once the fighting stopped , and the Yanks couldn't be bothered freighting it home

And, of course, what was worthless then might not be now. "'ear, Sarge, wot should I do wiv this Indian motorbike, 'S a bit battered n all." " Oh, that old thing is worthless, just shove it down that tunnel n' pile some of this junk in front of it, so those blurdy orficers don't see it or they'll make us carry it out"

Now, WWII Indian, complete and original? What price ?

They were BIG, them tunnels. Long tunnels, with honking big 'rooms' every so often. Piles of stuff, but all we saw was rubbish (then - but who knows nowdays) .

They long predated WWII BTW. Mostly 19th century. The Victorians had an obsession with digging tunnels. Then extended DEEP as air raid protection.

'Tis said that there were tunnels ran to the naval base. Probably true, there were certainly tunnels under the roads around Devonport,

EDIT: the bits of tunnels open now are just a trifle. The extreme outside. The entrance we used was on the seaward side down a cliff. Looked as if there'd been a lookout post or something there once. Only small boys would have found it or got to it.

I've tried to spot it a few times over the years, but I think it probably fell in and is blocked with overgrowth. And I'm not so into scrambling around on cliff faces these days. I very much doubt that entrance would have been sealed up, I think even then (early 50's) officialdom had forgotten it existed. It may never have been "official', looked like a bolt hole where the troops would nip out to have a bit of a spell and a smoke, out of the way of the NCOs.

[Swoop]

Conspiracy? I don’t think NZ had the intelligence for that back then. It would be more of an “incompetence” approach if any.
Any explosives would have been ditched at sea in the same way as other materials and munitions have been. The Hauraki Gulf has quite a bit on the seabed.
There were reputedly seven layers of tunnels from the top all the way down to sea level. The biggest being able to accept covered trucks with deliveries. A story was told of someone tying the end of a ball of string to the top entranceway, and then descending stairs until coming to the other end of the ball of string…
The ministry of works bulldozed over a lot of entrances to make the place safer for the public. Photos still exist of where those openings were. If “they” were serious about getting back in there and investigating properly, it could be done. There is at least one set of plans still in existence…
Singapore has done a brilliant job of making an interesting museum from their harbour defence fortifications. Restoring their tunnels to original wartime condition. The same could be done here.

[Ixion]

Oh. Yeah. I forgot that. We found stairs, concrete ones. Quite a few of them, going up and down. It was a pretty scary place.